


as we become tigers

by ircnman



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ballet, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Maria Stark's A+ Parenting, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Piano, Russian Natasha Romanov, Russian Tony, Tony and Nat bonding over shared experiences and their russian blood, sibling dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ircnman/pseuds/ircnman
Summary: She doesn’t remember learning the steps, doesn’t remember learning when to leap, run, pirouette. The movements are buried in her bones, sunk into her blood, and ithurts,the way her toes strike the floor. There’s an ache that builds beneath her sternum every time she finds herself enjoying the dance, (because in the Red Room it was torture. It was a front, it wasn’t supposed to—) but it’s familiar and kind, forgiving in all the ways that matter.It overwhelms her, sometimes, knowing that she can dance simply for the pleasure of dancing, and every time she catches a glimpse of Tony, hunched over ivory with his eyes shut tight, well.She guesses it must be the same for him.





	as we become tigers

**Author's Note:**

> i've published this once before, but I deleted it when I remade. just in case it looks familiar to any of you <3

It starts at a gala, as most glamorous things do— cast in a veil of plastic, silk, and shine.

The orchestra is playing something fast and whirling, hypnosis disguised as a melody.

_Russian,_ Natasha thinks as she smiles, honey sweet, twirling around the dance floor with her newest mark. He’s an older man, greying at the temples, a collection of lines carved into the skin around his eyes and mouth. He seems kind, or at least courteous, keeping his hands firmly on Natasha’s waist, refusing to stray. 

For that, she’s grateful. 

Playing this role is hard enough without having to dodge lions, prowling and hungry. 

With a flourish, the song comes to a close, the violins crying out in mourning even as the room bursts with applause. Natasha bows at her partner, letting her face cast itself in a seductive veneer, eyes half mast as the corners of her mouth curl into a lazy smile. The man bows back, dazed, like he’s just been thrown through a whirlwind, fading back into the chaos of the crowd. 

Suddenly, there’s a hand at her back, warm and calloused, and her shoulders go slack beneath the straps of her gown before she can even think to be on guard. 

It’s a reaction she’s only just developed. For decades, her only response to a gentle graze of skin was violence. But now, after over three years of living with her team, her friends, her _family_ , her body has found ways to unwind. Settle. 

_Oh, Antoshka,_ Natasha thinks, shaking her head even as she turns to meet Tony’s eyes. She bites the inside of her lip, fighting valiantly against the small smile she can feel building behind her teeth. _ты смешной._

“Hey there, Itsy Bitsy,” and his voice is smooth as whiskey, rough in its after taste. He handles her with care, the _brat_ to her _sestra_ , and then there’s the whine of a violin, the hum of a cello, and Tony’s taking her hand in his. 

“Care for a dance?” 

Without responding, Natasha tightens her grip on Tony’s fingers, swinging herself into his orbit. In a second, they’re gliding over the marble floor, arms poised and backs straight. She can feel Tony give in, can feel him relax and settle the way she has, and before she can stop it, she’s grinning, wide and bright, hiding her incisors in the lapel of Tony’s jacket. 

He always lets her lead. 

They spin for a while, but it’s around the middle of the piece, at a shift in tempo, that Tony tenses again, his muscles winding bowstring tight. 

“The tempo is wrong,” he says, and his voice is a rasp, cutting and harsh, and not for the first time that night, Natasha finds herself lost at sea. “They’re playing in lento. It’s supposed to be adagio. It’s wrong.” 

He begins to pull away, as if he’s going to confront the conductor, so Natasha acts on instinct, strengthening her grip until it’s biting. Quickly, she places a hand around the back of his neck, forcing Tony’s eyes to hers. As their gazes lock, Natasha becomes aware of the minute shaking of Tony’s frame, of the tension leaking into his neck and shoulders. 

“Look at me,” she says, and he’s already staring but he’s not _seeing._ “Tony, Antoshka, look at me.” 

Finally, his eyes focus, lose some of that frightening blankness that had made something in Natasha shiver, and he’s softening again, his mouth curling around words that are bittersweet in flavor. 

“Sorry. It’s….nothing. Nothing. I just—,” he shakes his head, clearing something away. 

“The tempo. It’s wrong.” 

Perhaps it’s the break in his voice, or maybe it’s the shine of his eyes, chocolate rich and oil spill dark— either way, the words cause understanding to strike Natasha, brutal as a bullet and just as painful. It’s nothing but a headline, a brief flash of a Ukrainian article from 1968, but it’s there, tucked away behind a thousand other scraps of paper that have deconstructed Tony into nothing but a series of moving parts. 

_Mar'ya Carbonell in Concert: A Modern Musical Marvel._

They all have their scars, but this is an open wound— filled with salt and festering. 

Around them, the orchestra is still playing, men and women are still dancing, and it feels like a nightmare. There’s laughter, then, so very fake and piercing that it makes Tony flinch something awful. Natasha doesn’t even think of denying herself, reaching out to brush a hand through Tony’s hair, over his jaw, her small, pale fingers cradling his delicate face, so very handsome and so much his father’s. 

The next step feels easy as breathing. 

“пойдем со мной.” 

_Come with me._

All it takes is a tug on his hand, a squeeze of his wrist, and he follows. 

Natasha weaves through the crowd with practiced ease, leading Tony through the cyclone of gold and silver like a lamb to slaughter. 

Or, in this case, a desperate man to salvation. 

Once they’ve reached the outskirts of the crowd, Natasha reaches under her dress, down to her garter, sliding her phone out of the band. She types out a quick text to Happy, asking that the car be pulled round to the front, and after a moment's hesitation, she opens another message as well. 

_I’ve got Tony. He’s fine._ She presses send, watching from across the room as Steve reaches a hand into his pocket. 

She wouldn’t want him worrying, after all. 

Even though she knows he’ll do it anyway. 

In a blink, everything is falling into place, and then she’s sitting beside Tony on seats wrapped in fine leather, the rumble of the engine making something inside her chest purr. 

“Thank you,” Tony says, and Natasha just looks at him, ready and waiting. 

“Спасибо, Natalia. Спасибо.” 

\+ 

They don’t talk about it. 

They don’t talk about the petite grand that sits on floor thirty-six, always polished and absent of dust. They don’t talk about the wood floor it rests on, scratched from years of use, stained with blood and sweat and salt. 

They don’t talk about the bars that line the mirrors, or the mirrors themselves, or the sheet music that rests idly on the piano bench near the windows. 

Tony doesn’t say a word when Natasha steps into the studio, shoes in hand, her lithe (deadly, provocative, weaponized, _no-_ ) body encased in nylon and tulle. 

Natasha, in turn, doesn’t speak when Tony sits at the piano, suit jacket off, his (bloody, scarred, calloused, _please-_ ) hands hovering lightly over the ivory keys. 

They’re leaking all over each other, red and viscous and violent, so violent, but it doesn’t matter. 

They all have their scars. 

They all have their open wounds, too. 

It’s about time they get around to healing them. 

“Giselle,” Natasha demands, and Tony begins. 

She doesn’t remember learning the steps, doesn’t remember learning when to leap, run, pirouette. The movements are buried in her bones, sunk into her blood, and it _hurts,_ the way her toes strike the floor. There’s an ache that builds beneath her sternum every time she finds herself enjoying the dance, (because in the Red Room it was torture, it was a front, it wasn’t supposed to—) but it’s familiar and kind, forgiving in all the ways that matter. 

It overwhelms her, sometimes, knowing that she can dance simply for the pleasure of dancing, and every time she catches a glimpse of Tony, hunched over ivory with his eyes shut tight, well. 

She guesses it must be the same for him. 

The story eventually comes out in a series of increments and irrelevant details, pasted between months of the same routine. Natasha shows up to the studio to find Tony already there and they play and they dance, going their separate ways to wrap their fingers and feet. None of it can be put in the files she’s still compiling by order of Fury, none of it even comes close to being useful in an accurate psych eval (because God knows the one she wrote so many years ago was wrong, so wrong, how could she ever—), but that’s not why she listens. 

Natasha Romanoff ( _Natalia, sestra, the itsy bitsy spider_ ) learns that Mar’ya Carbonell, a half-Italian Russian with more bite than bark, was only twenty-two when she married Howard Stark. Natasha learns that at twenty-two, Mar’ya became Maria, American in visage only, dedicated to making a name for herself in a country made of guns and pride and cigars rather than snow and wolves and blood. 

Natasha learns that Maria never planned on having children, learns that Tony was a surprise unlike any other, but she had done the best she could. 

When all is said and done, Natasha knows only the vaguest of details, collecting them through hazy portraits and one-way mirrors— retellings of stories that give her little to no context. 

Tony, in contrast, knows the color of Maria’s blood, the sound of her breathing, the smell of her perfume. 

It’s all there, branded into his memory, the grief running like electricity through his fingertips. 

He plays and Natasha dances and they don’t talk about it. 

Somehow, they convince themselves it’s for the best. 

\+ 

It’s not for the best, as it turns out. 

Doom invades New York. 

Tony breaks his wrist. 

Natasha doesn’t see him for four weeks. 

She goes to the studio every day, waiting for him to crawl out of the shadows, but he never appears. 

In the back of her mind, she pokes at her wounds, watching them flare and bleed. 

\+ 

“You’re an idiot,” Natasha says, and God, she really should be better at this. Christ knows she’s had enough practice breaking through the stubborn minds of insecure, _ridiculous_ — “You’re an idiot, and I’m never letting you do that again.” 

It’s 4:30 in the morning and outside, the sky is orange and blue, unsure of its color palette but aware of the hour. The air looks cold, brisk and autumnal, and even inside the tower, wrapped in carefully controlled warmth and fuzzy socks, Natasha still finds herself shivering as she stands in the kitchen. 

Tony looks exhausted, black circles hanging like crescent moons beneath his eyes, but his arm is absent of the red cast he’s been sporting for the past month. Across his wrist, Natasha can see the thin, pink line of a surgical scar just beginning to pucker. The presence of it makes something in Natasha’s stomach twist, the taste of worry appearing sharp and sour on the back of her tongue. 

“I’ll have you know that I happen to have three doctorates,” he replies, but his voice is flat, bitter as the coffee he’s drinking. “So you can take that idiot schtick and shove it, Rushmanoff.” 

He’s lashing out like he always does, snarling like a stray dog scared of being hurt again, (and Natasha knows that, how many times have they played this game?) but the moniker still stings. 

She’d thought they were past this. 

“I don’t know, Antoshka,” she says, and watches him melt under the endearment. “You might even be giving Clint a run for his money. After all, you’ve been running for weeks.” she pauses, heart sinking as he tenses again. “And for no reason. Seems pretty idiotic to me.” 

“Well, Tish-Tash, I’m not exactly useful when I’m down this many phalanges,” Tony bites out. The words are like barbed wire, wrapped around his smile, all plastic and full of teeth. 

“You’re only proving my point, Tony,” and it can’t be helping, but she’s rolling her eyes, because really? Is he that dense? 

Stepping forward, she reaches out her hand, curling her fingers around his wrist and flexing them for good measure. She doesn’t give him any warning, not a moment to prepare until she’s spinning, away from him at first and then back in towards the bracket of his arms, leaping with all the strength in her legs and— 

His hands are like iron around her waist, firm and unyielding. Through the fabric of her sweater, she feels the rough texture of his callouses, the warmth of his palms. 

_Safe,_ she thinks, and smiles. 

Poised in an arabesque, Natasha lets herself look down, breaking position as her eyes take in the tense lines of Tony’s back, the flex of his arms. 

“Let go, Tony. I've shown you this lift a thousand times. You know it, just like I know the piece you taught me. All your strength to your right arm now, Antoshka. Release." 

There’s a moment of hesitation, Tony's fingers tightening even further around her frame before he’s shifting his left arm— up, over, away. 

Natasha can’t help the grin that blooms, beaming at Tony through the red curtain of her hair. 

“You’re so much more than a teammate, _moy brat_ ," she says, voice nothing but a murmur as she reaches down, stretching just a bit to tangle her fingers in Tony’s hair. The shift of weight makes her wobble, but she doesn’t gasp or jerk or prepare to fall. She knows Tony has her. "So much more than just an accompanist. We want you here. It doesn’t matter if you’re useful or not.” 

From her place perched above Tony’s shoulders, she can only look at his face upside down. However, the angle doesn’t hinder the beautiful sight of his eyes fluttering shut in response to her words, vulnerable and so very fragile. 

A moment passes. Then another. 

“I know,” he says, and Natasha feels like she can breathe for the first time in weeks. 

“What the hell?” 

From the threshold of the kitchen, Steve is staring at them, open mouthed and gawking, his hair sleep mussed like he just woke up. 

Objectively, Natasha can agree that they must make quite a sight, especially at such an early hour: her, poised in the air like a hummingbird in flight and Tony, supporting her with one hand. The image makes her snort, and with a brief tap of the wrist, she signals for Tony to ease her back down. He obeys, settling her on the tile with that same kind of aching gentleness he always uses around her. 

“What’s the matter, Cap?” Natasha says with a wink, walking over to the bread box and popping two pieces into the toaster like she hasn’t just whipped _Don Quixote_ out of her repertoire in the middle of the kitchen. She keeps her body loose and relaxed, watching Tony out of the corner of her eye to make sure he doesn’t bolt. “Thought you’d be used to the circus routine by now.” 

Steve stares at her for a moment, mouth opening and closing as he tries to find words, before he simply shakes his head, making a beeline for the coffee maker where Tony is still standing frozen. Without hesitation, Steve reaches out a hand, placing his free palm on the crown of Tony’s head, letting gravity do the work for him as he runs his fingers through Tony’s hair, down to the nape of his neck where he squeezes the muscles, the motion melting all obvious tension. He whispers a quiet good morning against Tony’s temple, barely audible to Natasha, before placing a quick and tender kiss in the same place. From there, it’s like something unlocks, folds, settles into place. 

Without another word, Tony lets himself slump, his shoulders collapsing as he leans forward, resting his forehead on the juncture between Steve’s shoulder and chest. 

Immediately, Steve sets down his mug to cradle Tony closer, rocking him slowly back and forth, an early morning waltz with the percolator acting as the orchestra. 

Natasha just sits on the counter observing, a feeling of warmth radiating bright and strong beneath her ribs, right over her heart. 

Silently, as to not interrupt, Natasha takes her toast and Steve’s abandoned mug, pivoting out of the kitchen and into the hall with a smile on her face. 

They’ve all got their scars. 

They all have their open wounds, too. 

And without noticing, it seems that hers and Tony’s have just started to scab over. 

In the privacy of the common room, coffee and toast in hand, Natasha lets herself spin— a wide fouette that she arcs into a leap. 

She lands on her toes, quiet and graceful, and glances at her mug. 

She didn't spill a drop. 

More than anything, it feels like a victory. 


End file.
